NatPet Polypropylene Plant Hit by an Unscheduled Outage

2:06 PM MST | November 3, 2009 | Natasha Alperowicz

National Petrochemical Industrial Co.'s (NatPet; Yanbu, Saudi Arabia) Yanbu, Saudi Arabia based polypropylene (PP) manufacturing plant is off line due to technical reasons, CW has learned. The 400,000-m.t./year PP plant, commissioned in December 2008, has encountered problems with extruder gearbox, a major equipment item. The plant went down in mid August and will not restart until the end of November, sources tell CW. The plant uses the Spheripol PP technology and can produce premium grades of PP, including heterophasic and random co-polymers. NatPet...